Passing on the legacy baton [Video & podcast]

We are on time, on budget and we are fit for purpose, said Karen Elson, former programme assurance executive at the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). It was for this reason, among others, that the ODA decided to build a learning legacy and share best practice.

Karen was speaking at the fifth and final APM Learning Legacy event on Wednesday evening at the Londons Charing Cross Hotel, where she was joined by Colin Naish, executive director of infrastructure at the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), and Holly Knight, head of sustainability at the ODA.

As it became clearer that there were valuable lessons learned to share throughout the profession, Karen and her team began to collate documents and best practice from all tier suppliers. The idea was to benefit the industry and raise the bar, said Karen.

The key message from Holly Knight, was that We dont have to get bigger, we can get smarter.

Hollys argument was that instead of getting bigger, and hence more expensive, project professionals needed to develop a shrewder attitude when it comes to mega projects. She used the example of Beijings Birds Nest Stadium, which used 42,000 tonnes of steel, against Londons Olympic Stadium, which was constructed using 10,000 tonnes of steel, the lightest Olympic stadium to date.

Colin Naish, the man tasked with legacy transformation, explained that regeneration was core to London winning the Games. He said: Embedded within this regeneration from an early stage was the concept of convergence, which, within 20 years, would see communities post-2012 Games have the same social and economic chances as their neighbours across London.

It is Colins task to manage the transformation process from a mega project to a regular project, something he will be doing by using the best-practice documents created by the ODA and its legacy partners.

Read about all of the five events and the speakers in Julys issue of Project magazine.